I’ve taken the time to research via google, brave, duckduck, and other forums that would populate the search results.
I’ve found no interviews resulting in “changes” being made to a remastered game. All conclusions I’ve found were found within its limits of being “don’t fix what ain’t broke”.
Since I cannot post links I will be copying and pasting the entirety of each interview and or article found.
They aren’t recent but I also could not find any information on Developers confirming huge changes.
DYOR (Do your own research).
I do not own any rights to each of the articles listed below.
The upcoming remaster of
Diablo 2: Resurrected won’t have cross-play, according to a Blizzard developer on the project. While this twenty-year-old cult classic loot-based RPG is getting an all-new remastering for PC and consoles, this brand new remaster will not include cross-play. It turns out bringing such a beloved series back into the imelight can be a real challenge.
Diablo 2: Resurrected is the remastered edition of Diablo 2, a sequel to Blizzard’s Diablo on PC released in the year 2000. Diablo 2 continues on the story from the first game, taking place just after the end of the final act in Diablo, with the unnamed warrior unraveling under the strain of taking in the Lord of Terror’s essence into his own body, becoming a new prime evil for players to face. Players choose from a new roster of heroes to explore Diablo 's world of Khanduras - the Amazon, Assassin, Necromancer, Barbarian, Druid, Sorceress, and Paladin. The plot of Diablo 2 ties directly into the story of Diablo
In a recent round table interview with IGN Middle East, two of the main developers for Diable 2: Resurrected, have spoken about how they have been trying to balance the original design and aesthetic of the game all while bringing the game into the modern day with new graphics and quality of life changes. Some of these quality-of-life changes include cross-platform play, with players able to continue their progress across multiple consoles with cross-save. While Diablo 2: Resurrected will be available on all modern platforms, players will only be able to play together on the same platform. At this point in time, cross-play will not be available in the remaster, with various issues in the game’s design preventing cross-play from working. “Cross-play was a cool idea, but it just wasn’t the right fit for the game since the game has different UIs, control schemes, and stuff like that,” said Matthew Cederquist, Gamer Producer, to IGN, “We brought in cross-progression because it felt right, and we wanted to make sure that no matter what console, or platform a player wants to play on, they are going to get the best experience.”
The developers also discussed the team’s plan to keep the same feel of the game in line with the original Diablo 2 . The team decided on a 70 - 30 art rule for the entire game. This rule would mean that only 70% of the art in the remake will be new, with the remaining 30% remaining the same but instead being used to add embellishments and modernization. “When we first started working on the game, we wanted to keep all the gameplay aspects, like discovering the Horadric Cube recipes, or the deep itemization systems or the drop rates, and all the storytelling. But when we approach things like the art, we wanted to push it and modernize it as much as we could,” Andre Abrahamian, Game Designer, told IGN.
It’s still unclear as to when both Diablo 2: Resurrected and Diablo IV will be released, with both only having been announced in last month’s digital Blizzcon event. In the meantime, Blizzard has been releasing plenty of news on how the remaster and next installment in the series will play.
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Derek Strickland
@DeekeTweak
UPDATED THU, AUG 12 2021 2:33 AM CDT
Diablo II Resurrected is shipping with a bunch of quality of life improvements to make things a lot better for die-hard players, especially those that want to collect, trade, and make progress in their Holy Grail.
Storage space has always been an issue in Diablo II, and the best mods offer practically infinite stash tabs to ensure you simply never run out of room for all the uniques, gems, charms, and whatever else you find.
While Diablo II Resurrected won’t offer infinite stash space, it will offer a lot more than Lord of Destruction–four times the storage, to be exact. Vicarious Visions confirms that D2R’s new shared stash will have 3 pages with 300 slots for your best findings. That’s 400 slots total including your personal stash.
“After careful deliberation, the Shared Stash will now have three tabs, rather than just one. Many players felt one tab wasn’t enough. When it comes to a player’s personal storage chest, we understand it’s serious business. This change will enable players to better organize their loot across three tabs (100 slots each) of storage space and store many more items,” the developers said in a recent update.
This massive storage expansion will utterly transform the landscape of in-game trading by giving players more room to hold more items, while also alleviating the need for muling–a risky process where you drop an item on the ground with another player in the game, and hop back into the game with another character with a free inventory to grab the item.
I personally cannot wait for Diablo II Resurrected when it releases this September. The devs are clearly putting lots of time and effort into making the original game so much better than it ever was while also preserving the authentic mechanics, gear, and dark gothic ambiance from the original.
A Timeless Classic, Resurrected
Diablo® II: Resurrected™ is a remastered version of the quintessential action RPG Diablo® II. Pursue the mysterious Dark Wanderer and fight the denizens of hell as you uncover the fate of the Prime Evils Diablo, Mephisto, and Baal, now in up to 4K (2160p) resolution on PC. Diablo II Resurrected features:
Remastered graphics-monsters, heroes, items, spells, all resurrected.
An epic story told through five distinct acts.
Classic gameplay-the same Diablo II you know and love, preserved.
Updated Battle.net support.
Planned support for cross-progression-take your progress wherever you play.
… and much more!
The Lord of Destruction Returns
Diablo II: Resurrected includes all content from both Diablo II and its epic expansion Diablo II: Lord of Destruction®. Battle your way through icy caverns, horrific tombs filled with undead abominations, and frozen wastelands to the frigid summit of Mount Arreat and stop Baal, the Lord of Destruction. Raise hell with two Lord of Destruction playable classes-the cunning Assassin, master of traps and shadow disciplines, and the savage Druid, a bold shapeshifter and summoner who commands primal elemental magic.
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Diablo II returns . . . and Hell has never looked better.
Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo II: Resurrected, the definitive remastering of Diablo II and its Lord of Destruction expansion—two hallmark entries in the company’s genre-defining action role-playingseries.
Diablo II: Resurrected welcomes back veteran heroes and invites a new generation of players to experience the game’s sinfully dark storyline, thrilling loot chase, and visceral hack-and-slash gameplay with modernized visuals that take advantage of the latest gaming hardware.
Diablo II: Resurrected takes the 2D sprite-based classic and brings it into the present with full 3D physically-based rendering, dynamic lighting, revamped animations and spell effects—all stunningly delivered in up to 4K resolution. All 27 minutes of the game’s classic cinematics, chronicling the journey of the mysterious Dark Wanderer, are being remade—shot for shot—from the ground up. The nightmarish sounds of Sanctuary and its memorable soundtrack have also been reinvigorated to support Dolby 7.1 surround sound. By leveling up the game’s audio and visual capabilities, Diablo II: Resurrected will showcase the depth of gameplay and hallmark designs that continue to entertain players around the world to this day.
Diablo II: Resurrected faithfully remasters Diablo II and its expansion with hauntingly detailed high-res 3D visuals and Dolby 7.1 surround sound, while preserving its timeless gameplay.
Diablo II returns . . . and Hell has never looked better.
Blizzard Entertainment announced Diablo II: Resurrected, the definitive remastering of Diablo II and its Lord of Destruction expansion—two hallmark entries in the company’s genre-defining action role-playingseries.
Diablo II: Resurrected welcomes back veteran heroes and invites a new generation of players to experience the game’s sinfully dark storyline, thrilling loot chase, and visceral hack-and-slash gameplay with modernized visuals that take advantage of the latest gaming hardware.
Diablo II: Resurrected takes the 2D sprite-based classic and brings it into the present with full 3D physically-based rendering, dynamic lighting, revamped animations and spell effects—all stunningly delivered in up to 4K resolution. All 27 minutes of the game’s classic cinematics, chronicling the journey of the mysterious Dark Wanderer, are being remade—shot for shot—from the ground up. The nightmarish sounds of Sanctuary and its memorable soundtrack have also been reinvigorated to support Dolby 7.1 surround sound. By leveling up the game’s audio and visual capabilities, Diablo II: Resurrected will showcase the depth of gameplay and hallmark designs that continue to entertain players around the world to this day.
One of Blizzard’s priorities is to always look for ways to iterate and improve the entertainment experiences we create for our players. That can’t be better demonstrated than by our efforts on Diablo II: Resurrected. Visually, the remastered aesthetic brings the classic game into stunning high-resolution to take advantage of the latest hardware, but we also wanted to identify ways to provide a smoother and more accessible gameplay experience to as many people as possible. To illustrate the D2R team’s philosophy around making the Burning Hells a more welcoming destination for everyone, we invited design and UX accessibility lead Drew McCrory to share his insights.
The Philosophy
So, when we first sat down with the intent of modernizing one of the most beloved ARPGs of all time, we knew there was work to do from all angles. The game is over 20 years old, and the longtime Diablo II community is ravenous and heavily entrenched in decades of eccentricities and quirks. Our team includes many D2 purists who have thousands upon thousands of hours in the game before working on it professionally, and our goal is not to break what isn’t broken.
One thing we agree on is that it doesn’t matter how pretty the grass is if you can’t see the legendary staff on the ground; it ultimately sabotages the core gameplay experience. Accessibility is one major area of opportunity for this remaster to shine, and our intention to bring games to more players has evolved and is more refined now than ever before.
We had early wins with accessibility improvements like auto-gold pick-up, larger font sizes, UI scaling on Windows® PC, and options like gamma and contrast settings to enhance readability. But we knew that there were even more opportunities to improve accessibility to further enhance the gameplay of Diablo II for many of our current and potential future players.
Let’s take auto-gold pick-up as an example. Our initial inspiration for this feature’s implementation was for controller players to not need to click as much, but we were pleasantly surprised to see mouse and keyboard players with limited mobility in their hands really enjoy this feature during the Technical Alpha. If a player with a disability or hand injury was looting in Diablo II: Resurrected, this option could alleviate physical stress without compromising the core gameplay experience. While we implemented this option with one type of player in mind, we ended up benefiting countless other players by giving them a quality of life (QoL) option they can choose to enable when they configure their personal Diablo II experience. This exhibits the “Solve for One, Extend to Many” principle, leading to a greater impact throughout the player community.
One fascinating issue we diagnosed early was that players weren’t getting the right level of feedback for when they were missing enemies in melee. When you dive into how Diablo II works, it’s rolling dice on the back end as it’s a role-playing game first and foremost. You could be right on top of a monster, and your sword might animate through that target as though a strike landed. But in actuality, your stats rolled poorly, so that attack was a whiff. That’s a sound system; the problem was the game wasn’t telling players what happened loud enough. Do you know what that looks like in a modern game? A bug.
So, we added an option to enable miss text. It’s a small thing. Purists don’t need it, but what it does is provide a level of feedback to the players who don’t know how all the inner systems are working and reinforces the RPG element of our game.
Another key piece of accessibility is key bindings. Allowing players to set their station fully is critical. Our control scheme for controllers allows for heavy amounts of modification, and we support a long list of bindable actions for the mouse and keyboard. We provide twelve bindable keys and allow all actions/skills to be assigned in any way the player desires. To support this, we’ve even created new bindable neutral skills like interact, allowing for complete customization.
Diablo II is primarily a game about picking up and holding items and persistently clicking. We know that prolonged holds and repetitive actions can be a significant barrier for some players, so we’ve added quality of life features to help mitigate the fatigue caused by many of these actions. For example, now players can toggle actions (such as viewing items on the ground) to be on click vs. on hold.
This improvement prevents the need to keep pressure on a button for a prolonged time. After the Technical Alpha, this change alone is a massive win to users who shared their testing feedback, and we’re happy we were able to hit it. We also allow many controller abilities to continuously trigger if the button is held down for players who can’t repeatedly tap buttons quickly.
Audio Accessibility
Getting the most out of audio is also a critical second-channel piece of feedback for players in Diablo II. With the number of audio cues going on, we felt we should allow players to manually augment their sound channels, culling what they don’t think is essential and enhancing what they prefer. In the Options menu, players can adjust the volume levels of a multitude of audio channels. These sliders allow you to adjust the audio levels of voices, UI cues, footsteps, monster hit impacts, weapon noises, ambient objects, combat gore, and so much more.
With the options we provide, we hope that players attune their audio to their playstyle, including situational accessibility needs. Perhaps if you’re streaming or your baby is asleep in the other room, you can now enable or disable audio to ensure you’re getting the proper feedback at the level you want.
We have more optional accessibility features beyond what I’ve highlighted above in the works for players to enhance their experience at their discretion. We’ll continue to remain focused on how to take a true classic and modernize its accessibility for all players. Our team has the most fun when everyone is having fun, and we’ll do our best to enable as many players as possible to play Diablo II: Resurrected.
Drew McCrory Design UX/Accessibility Lead
As Drew noted, we’ll continue to look for feedback that points to ways we can make our game more accessible. Our teams have previously sought feedback from a variety of players, including those with disabilities, to make Diablo II: Resurrected as accessible as possible. Between text-to-speech and screen reader support or adding controller configurations to allow players who play predominantly play with one hand to swap their analog stick controls interchangeably; as a community we’ll continue to evaluate areas to improve. We are grateful to these players for identifying challenges that would hinder their experience or make the game less enjoyable and several of the options highlighted above were inspired by and implemented because of their valuable insights.
Ultimately, Diablo II: Resurrected has been a labor of love, refitted by passionate fans who fondly remember the original who are eager to build more lifelong memories with a new generation. We want everyone, from experienced veterans to new players, and regardless of platform or ability, to enjoy the timeless experience that is Diablo II.
If you would like to participate in these playtests and studies, members of our community can sign up on the Blizzard Research site. We’re always seeking unique perspectives to help us improve players’ experiences in our games.
For those who would prefer a more nostalgic experience, players will be able to freely switch back-and-forth between the modern graphics and the original experience at any time with the press of a button. While Diablo II: Resurrected may look like an all-new game, Diablo II 's signature gameplay and systems are completely intact, quirks and all, adding a few highly requested quality of life improvements, such as a shared stash.
Diablo II: Resurrected features even highly customizable character classes for players to choose from—the Amazon, Barbarian, Necromancer, Paladin, and Sorceress from the core game, as well as the Assassin and Druid from the included Lord of Destruction expansion. Players will be able to make each character their own by selecting skills and talent builds, crafting and socketing items, collecting complete gear sets, acquiring unique arms and armor, assembling Rune Word combinations, and much more.
Diablo II: Resurrected is an all-inclusive package containing a lifetime of adventures. It will take players to the deadly world of Sanctuary, where they will face Diablo, the Lord of Terror, and the forces of Hell through all four thrilling Acts of the original Diablo II campaign. They’ll meet beloved mentor and scholar Deckard Cain, fight alongside the Archangel Tyrael, and encounter other pantheonic characters who have become an indelible part of gaming history. This edition also includes all of the content from the Lord of Destruction expansion, with the journey continuing into Act V, where players will brave the dangers of Mount Arreat before facing Baal, the eponymous Lord of Destruction.
Key Features:
The Burning Hells opens its gates in the fall – Diablo II: Resurrected will release globally on Windows PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One on September 23, 2021.
A classic reborn – The original 2D sprite-based models are reborn with full 3D physically-based rendering. Upgraded visuals also include new animations, dynamic lighting, new textures, and updated visual effects Explore the Sanctuary of players’ nightmares, now in stunning 4K resolution.
Relive the terror – Diablo II: Resurrected will feature all 27 minutes of cinematics from the original game that have been remade, shot-for-shot, with stunning high-fidelity visuals, immersing players deeper into the dark storyline than ever before.
Available for pre-purchase on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One — Diablo II: Resurrected can be purchased as a standalone experience or as part of the Diablo Prime Evil Collection, which includes Diablo II: Resurrected, Diablo® III, the Reaper of Souls™ expansion, the Rise of the Necromancer pack, and exclusive cosmetic items for Diablo III.
We last spoke to Blizzard about Diablo 2 shortly after the remaster’s reveal at BlizzCon 2021, where we largely touched on the team’s plan for tackling this passion project, as well as references to ‘Marky’ Mark Wahlberg, and features like mod support.
With the technical alpha at an end and plenty of playing time under our belts, we caught up with design lead Rob Gallerani and lead artist Chris Amaral. So read on for chat about monster redesigns, digging through reference materials, feedback on the technical alpha, and the importance of getting every detail right for fans of the original.
PCGamesN: Could you tell us more about Vicarious Visions involvement with Diablo 2 Resurrected?
Rob Gallerani: One of the really cool things about Vicarious Visions is the variety of games we worked on. So Tony and Crash were the last couple, but before those we worked on many different genres. You’ve got first-person shooters, we’ve done racing games in the past, right?
What’s really important is doing right by each fan base. So what worked for Crash Bandicoot is not going to work for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, and what worked for that is not going to work for Diablo 2. The basis of it is that we’re making this game for the fans. This is an authentic remaster of people’s childhood. And that’s true for any kind of remaster you want to do, but I wouldn’t say that’s new to Blizzard, right? Blizzard has massive amounts of expertise as well.
How did you go about updating the monster designs for HD? I love the way the Gargantuan Beast looks in Resurrected, but I’m less keen on the Fallen.
Chris Amaral: All of the art in the game was given what we call a 70/30 visual guide. It’s a way to maintain the iconic shapes and the things that make Diablo 2 special. So 70% is keeping everything classic: maintaining the silhouette reads, the colours, the posing and all that stuff that makes the creature true to the original design. The 30% is where we’ve pushed and elevated that art.
THIS IS AN AUTHENTIC REMASTER OF PEOPLE’S CHILDHOOD
Rob Gallerani
Lead designer
With the Gargantuan Beast in particular, we actually found a whole breadth of original reference images and renders of the high-res sprites that were used internally. So we could really delve in and see what the inspiration was. And going from there we would just try and bring a more modern, contemporary look to the art. So the Gargantuan Beast is this hulking, massive character. He’s covered in fur, so we had to investigate and put a lot of effort into making a hair shader so it looks like fur.
And then as far as everything else is concerned, we wanted to make sure the reads are the same, the colours are the same – that was really our focus. We want things to feel like they’re an evolved form of the original game, but still within the same realm. Bringing in those extra details and design elements helps to make everything feel more immersive, believable, and horrific. We want this game to feel like it’s an M-rated game and that it has that horror element like the original did.
You recently had the first technical closed alpha, how did that go?
RG: It went pretty awesome. The fans were really excited and we got a lot of great feedback. One of the most important things that you’re only going to get from people when they play it is whether it feels right. So we could give all these interviews, we could say as much as we want, but there’s only so much belief people have until they get it in their hands. It was awesome to actually take people who stream the original Diablo 2 all day, and see them literally switch over to the new game and not miss a beat – that was really, really valuable.
The other really great thing was that we got a lot of very specific low level feedback. It wasn’t like there was one giant problem that kind of got in the way and overshadowed all of these other things. It was details like the colour of a certain object or some other little thing. That’s great feedback to get.
It didn’t take long for players to crack item duping and swap to locked classes – did any of that surprise you?
RG: I mean… it’s the internet, right? Can any of us really be surprised about that? Just one thing to remind everyone of is that the game is work-in-progress, right? Everything is still being worked on.
There is a reason why we chose to show what we showed. When you look at the classes that were available: the Sorceress is a very ranged character with lots of effects, the Barbarian offers very close-range melee combat, and the Amazon’s kind of an in-between. We wanted to hammer on the controller and how the controller felt for people, and those were the three classes that were ready to be shown and that we felt could get us the most feedback. It’s not the greatest that players unlocked those other classes, but we’re not trying to hide anything – I think the statute of limitations is up on what Diablo 2’s classes are.
CA: In terms of the art side, I felt like act one and act two offered a really good vertical slice of gameplay. You have a good boss fight and a really good breadth of atmospheres like the deserts and the wilderness. Getting that feedback helps us, because I want to let you know that the art team is always reading everything online. All of us are constantly refreshing pages and looking around for feedback, because we want to make this the best possible game that we can.
It’s something that’s really influenced the entire team. It influenced me personally, because Diablo 2 made me want to become a dark fantasy artist. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years, and back in school I wanted to be something else. So this game really inspired me. And I want fans to know: thank you for the feedback, we’re reading it.
One of the things I tried to do immediately was access the secret cow level. Are the cows coming and how are they going to look?
Both: There is no secret cow level!
Are you sure?
RG: You’re just taking the audio from this interview, correct? Not our facial expressions?
Going back to that issue of item duping, does history help you stay ahead of that or is it always going to be an issue?
RG: Like all live games it’s something that’s going to have to be an active thing that we always work on. The technical alpha was an offline, local character experience. We had it connected to Battle.net, but that’s really just because of the nature of the technical alpha.
When your character is saved offline, there’s a lot players can do to that save. Right now, we’re focusing most of our efforts on the Battle.net saved characters and preventing duping there because it ruins the economy for lots of players. There’s no Soulbound, there’s no personal loot. And on top of that, unfortunately, a common way that people dupe items is by crashing servers, so we want to make the best experience for all players.
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Having a history of 20 years watching how people dupe items is definitely helpful, but it’s something that has to be actively monitored.
How many people took part in the alpha test, and are you hoping to expand on that number in the next test?
RG: I don’t have the exact number off the top of my head, but I do know that it was easily tens of thousands of players. I can’t say exactly how it was spread out, because most of it was a lottery, right? However, we did try to make sure that we got a nice spread of people from different regions and that we had streamers getting into it, mostly because they then reach other players. So if you didn’t get into the alpha, at least you can watch someone play it. We are hoping to increase that number come the beta, especially because the beta is multiplayer.
What’s your worst case scenario for any future tests regarding the feedback?
RG: Worst case scenario? Everything crashes and burns. But I think that we’re pretty well prepared for that. I mean, we have a huge veterancy of Blizzard making online games that support millions and millions of active players. So there are groups of people who tell us what to prepare for. So yes, there’s always a doomsday scenario. I don’t think I’m educated enough to even know how bad it could get.
I suppose the main reason I asked that is because of the backlash to Warcraft III: Reforged. So I’m just wondering what steps are you taking in order to ensure that sort of thing doesn’t happen with Diablo 2 Resurrected?
RG: Right now, we just have to get Diablo 2 right. What we’re doing right now is having fans see it before it comes out. So by having the technical alpha people get their hands on the game, and so we get feedback when there’s still time to work on the game. It’s really the best thing we have to hedge that.
One thing I noticed while playing the alpha is that the stash seems like it’s loosely based on the Plugy mod for Diablo 2. How much inspiration has been taken from mods that came out for the original Diablo 2?
RG: When we approached quality of life on this game, we definitely wanted to make the game more accessible, but not easier. So things like making the inventory huge, or making it so all of your items can stack, right? Picking which loot to take and discard is still an important decision, so we’re not going to make the game easier.
Another thing is that looking at the mod community, it is a nice kind of litmus test to know, ‘oh, this audience – the hardcore audience – they like these types of things.’ We didn’t just say, ‘oh, take everything this mod does or take everything that mod does,’ it was more about whether the community would hate this quality of life change or not. So it was nice to look at the community and see, ‘oh, well actually 90% of the mods out there do this one thing.’
WE WANT THINGS TO FEEL LIKE THEY’RE AN EVOLVED FORM OF THE ORIGINAL GAme
Now here’s kind of a fun story for why we chose the size we did for the stash. Because you can toggle at any point between HD and SD, we have to make sure that shared stash is accessible in SD. Well, the 10×10 is actually the vendor screen grid. So we knew we already had art for that in SD. So that’s actually why we went with that number – it was bigger, it was art that already existed in the SD. Anything we add in HD as a quality of life change that didn’t exist in SD, has to still work. There was no shared stash in SD 20 years ago.
It’s the same with controller support, right? So if you switch to controller, you’ll notice that the HUD stays in HD, but the game goes to SD. And that’s because there was no controller HUD at all. And to try and fake that was like nope, I don’t think people will like that because there was no parity of what the controller icons looked like in the original game.
Are there any other examples of mod-inspired changes that are coming to Resurrected? And is there going to be any acknowledgment of those original mod creators? Or is this just stuff that’s coming to the game?
RG: It’s not that we’re looking at mods to tell us what we should do. It’s that the ARPG genre has been advancing for 20 years, right? We have the people who work on Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 right next door to us. So it’s just kind of looking at how the genre has matured and how those players are used to playing the game.
We want to bring some of those changes to Diablo 2 Resurrected, but we have to do it in a way that doesn’t make it not Diablo 2. We’re not trying to fix Diablo 2. We’re not trying to make Diablo 2 a different game. We have other games if you want that. Take auto-gold for example, auto-gold is something that many, many, many games just do now. But if you look at how we put auto-gold in Resurrected, you still have to run over to it. We don’t make it like a giant vacuum, there’s still the physical aspect of having to run around.
Read more: Here are the best RPG games on PC
When we added controller support, we initially thought to just make the inventory into a list, because moving items around Tetris-style is hard on a controller. But when we did that, it was totally usable, but it wasn’t Diablo 2 anymore. That’s really kind of the process we go through for what quality of life changes we want to make. Do people expect it? Like, even item compare? A lot of people didn’t even remember that item compare wasn’t in the original game.
That’s news to me.
RG: It’s just become such a staple, and so that’s where it’s okay, because people forgot it didn’t even exist in the old game.
I was really impressed with how Resurrected handles the map. I remember having to toggle it on and off constantly in the original because it just got in the way so much.
CA: A little art detail on that map is that the map art is actually pulling from all the sprite art from the original game. So we’re using the original sprite art to create that map. So it’s kind of a cool nod to the original game.
Presumably, the hope is that Resurrected will draw in a lot of new players as well. How do you go about making a game that’s 20 years old appealing to a new audience?
RG: We definitely want to focus on the authenticity of it, this notion of playing it because it’s a piece of history. We want people to understand that when they’re going into it.
The other part is, in this day and age, any time we instruct a player on how to do something, we’re actually taking away from the community coming together to talk to each other. And it’s so much easier to learn and share now with forums, YouTubers, and streamers. So that’s something we don’t want to squash.
That being said, one of the biggest things we’re focusing on is discoverability. For example, a lot of people were like, ‘oh, I wish you could automatically sort your belt when using a controller.’ And we’re like, you can, it says so right at the bottom of the screen. But clearly, we didn’t do it well enough to let players know. So those are things where it’s not making the game easier. It’s not changing the vibe of the game. But we want people to kind of stumble upon this stuff without having to go to the internet to figure it out.
Last time we spoke you mentioned finding reference images of Mark Wahlberg for Larzuk, did you find any other quirky references?
CA: Not so much wacky or quirky. I mean, we did a lot of digging and we found areas where the original game would pull a certain piece of art. I think I gave an example of the succubus, which was actually just a re-envision of the assassin. They made the assassin first, took her model file, gave her wings, gave her slightly different armor. So any time where we saw there was a choice made for the original game, we made the same choice for Resurrected, just to really stay true to the decisions that were made originally.
RG: This even extends to gear and stuff. You can tell that over 20 years ago, someone went to a library for a historic reference of a Roman shield. And we now have the ability to find the exact same historical pieces in the Louvre or the Smithsonian. It’s not just remastering what was made, it’s also how they made it back then.
CA: Yeah, and it’s also about matching their intention. If something was red, were they trying to give a bloody visual effect, or did it just have a tint of red?
Diablo 2 Resurrected is set to release at some point in 2021 – hopefully appeasing ARPG fans as they wait for news on Diablo 4
